Electrons are easy. Politics is hard. This week, the Department of Energy reopened its checkbook for small modular reactors, tariffs loomed large over demand forecasts, and one long-dead nuclear plant is clawing its way back to life. It’s a good time to be in the energy business—if you can stomach bureaucracy, subsidies, and the eerie feeling that the future arrived last Tuesday without calling ahead.

TVA, Holtec Reapply for DOE’s $800M SMR Jackpot

The Department of Energy has reopened its $800 million SMR funding program—but with a Trumpian twist. Gone are the soft metrics like “community benefits.” What remains is pure steel: project viability, licensing readiness, and how fast you can put concrete in the ground. TVA and GE Hitachi lead one bid for a BWRX-300 at Clinch River. Holtec wants the money to kickstart its SMR-300 units at the old Palisades site in Michigan.

This isn’t a science fair. It’s a race to see who can build the first Gen III+ plant in America, with factory-built parts, passive safety, and a realistic schedule. TVA already holds an early site permit. Holtec owns its land outright. Both are chasing first power by 2030–32. That’s ambitious by nuclear standards and laughably slow by AI standards, which is precisely why this program exists: to avoid another decade of hand-wringing while the Chinese scale SMRs like they’re stacking IKEA furniture.

Will Tariffs Chill the AI Electricity Boom?

French utility Engie says electricity demand is “resilient” to tariffs. That’s one word for it. But behind the Davos-friendly optimism lies a hard problem: the AI sector is scaling like it has a death wish for the grid, and now Washington’s trade war is threatening the supply chains that keep it humming.

Tariffs may not kill demand outright—but they do distort it. Projects get delayed. Capital gets jittery. And the sector ends up with slower buildouts, fewer wires, and more lobbying. In short: tariffs are the energy policy equivalent of throwing sand in the gearbox. We need more power, faster, and cheaper—not a price hike dressed up as patriotism. AI doesn’t care about geopolitics. It cares about uptime.

Palisades Nuclear Set to Rise from the Grave

Palisades is back—maybe. Holtec’s zombie nuke on the shores of Lake Michigan just secured another $46 million from DOE, part of a $1.5 billion conditional loan package to restart the 800 MW reactor by late 2025. If successful, it’ll be the first ever U.S. commercial nuclear plant to reopen after decommissioning.

The play here isn’t nostalgia—it’s grid reality. The Midwest needs firm power, fast. Wind is intermittent, gas is price-sensitive, and solar has a bedtime. Palisades is shovel-ready, staffable, and already wired to the system. It’s the most pragmatic form of climate policy: reuse what you’ve already built. Call it reactor recycling. And if it works, expect more “decommissioned” plants to start looking a lot less retired.

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Conversation Starters

• Bloomberg – Energy Security Isn’t Climate Denialism, It’s Realism

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• Popular Mechanics – A Thorium Reactor in the Desert Has Rewritten the Rules

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• Reuters – India Eyes Foreign Investment in Nuclear Plants

  For the first time, India is considering allowing foreign firms to own up to 49% of its nuclear facilities. The catch? Still needs parliamentary approval—and an overhaul of its liability laws.

Good Bet, Bad Bet

Good Bet: Nucor (NUE)
While everyone’s chasing AI, Nucor is quietly cornering the one thing no energy transition can function without: steel. From transformer cores to reactor shells, demand for high-grade, low-impurity steel is climbing fast. Nucor’s electric arc furnace strategy makes it cleaner, cheaper, and more responsive than legacy mills. If SMRs, wind towers, and grid upgrades are coming, Nucor will sell them the spine.

Bad Bet: Any AI datacenter builder who forgot to secure firm power
It’s not a ticker—yet—but it’s a pattern. The AI land rush has tech companies buying up land for future server farms without securing the electrons to run them. That’s not speculative—it’s suicidal. If you’re holding long-term bets on hyperscaler expansion without paired generation assets or long-term PPAs, sell now and buy utilities. ChatGPT doesn’t work without watts.

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